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Today’s #SyriacPalimpsestsMonday I would like to devote to the oldest dated #Biblical #manuscript in existence. Those familiar with the field of #Syriac studies, might think in this respect of the manuscript held in the British Library, Add. 14425. 
Indeed, this manuscript was copied by a scribe called Yoḥannan in 775 of the Seleucid era corresponding to 463/4 CE. The manuscript contains the Pentateuch and was produced not in #Edessa (the central hub of the early Syriac Christianity), but in Amid (today’s Diyarbakır).
This manuscript is often mentioned as the oldest dated Biblical manuscript in existence. One often tends to neglect another Syriac biblical manuscript, which is slightly older. It is also kept at the British Library, as Add. 14512.
1/ 4. We often claim that #palimpsest are rare in Qur’ān scribal culture. Perhaps, in fact, they are many more than we think. Perhaps we have not seen them yet…
2/4. This morning, I was looking again at the UNESCO pictures of the Ṣan‘ā’ collection and came across another possible case of palimpsest. I’m not sure of that because of the quality of these images, it’s just a strong intuition I'd like to share with you
3/4. We know 4 pictures/pages of this manuscript. All seem palimpsests. The Qur’ān written in the upper text is perhaps from the 9th or 10th CE. The erased text is Arabic, certainly also Qur’ānic, and not much older than the upper text.
